Contact Mechanics at the Insect-Plant Interface: How Do Insects Stick and How Do Plants Prevent This?

  • Elena V. Gorb
  • Stanislav N. Gorb
Conference paper
Part of the Iutam Bookseries book series (IUTAMBOOK, volume 10)

Abstract

Contacting surfaces in many insect attachment devices are subdivided into patterns of micro- or nanostructures with a high aspect ratio. This paper provides some explanations of the adhesion enhancement effect in such systems. However, attachment abilities of insects depend on the roughness and mechanical stability of the substrate features. Wax bloom of some plant surfaces causes a strong reduction of insect attachment. Four hypotheses of anti-adhesion mechanism of plant surfaces covered with epicuticular wax crystals are proposed, and two of them are experimentally supported.

Keywords

Adhesion biotribology biomechanics functional surfaces 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009

Authors and Affiliations

  • Elena V. Gorb
    • 1
  • Stanislav N. Gorb
  1. 1.Evolutionary Biomaterials Group, Department of Thin Films and Biological SystemsMax Planck Institute for Metals ResearchGermany

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